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‘WANDLE RIVERSIDE’ Summerstown182 HISTORY WALK 4.5 miles, (50-60 minutes) GREAT Start at TOWN LIBRARY, ESCAPES SOUTHSIDE, , SW18 WANDLE RIVERSIDE (4.5 miles, 50-60 minutes) Summerstown182 Originally devised to help everybody through the lockdown, these great downloadable walks take in significant features of historical interest for you to enjoy in the // Wandsworth/Wimbledon area. There are now multiple flavours of Summerstown182‘Great GREAT Escapes’ to choose from, every one a winner! Perfect for mind, body and spirit. ESCAPES

Mixing up the old and the brand, shiny new - this fascinating excursion takes - everything except people. Beset with broken rails and superseded by the steam you to the mystical, magical place where the Wandle meets the Thames. It age, it fizzled out in 1846. Every so often one of its stone sleepers gets dug up, there includes some breathtaking riverside stretches, sections of Wandsworth’s oldest is one in St Mary’s Church Summerstown and before the development a cluster were residential streets and most recent developments. Passing some of its most embedded in the wall of the brewery in Ram Street. The best person and place to historic pubs and the sites of some of its most notable industries, it finishes at find out more about it is Eric at theWandle Industrial Museum in . the old Young’s Brewery ‘Ram Quarter’ development. Its not all pretty, this area, Cross the Wandle via ‘Wandle Creek Bridge’. The river and adjoining channel Bell but its had quite a life... 8 Lane Creek have formed a small pointed island and ‘nature reserve’ called The Spit, 1 START WANDSWORTH TOWN LIBRARY - The library which was the old a great viewing platform, sadly currently closed. Instead enjoy this bit of footage shot court house and later the museum is close to Southside Shopping Centre. Next to it there about twenty years ago by the Wandle Delta Blues Band. is a building which as a plaque indicates, was once the Biograph Theatre, ’s 9 Follow the riverside path to your right as it curls in front of another recent waterside first licensed cinema, used for a long time as a bottle store by the pub next door. development. Continue along here with Bridge in the distance, the Hurlingham 2 Walk a little way back up Garratt Lane and take a left into the Old Garratt Lane Club across the river. Just past the water taxi station, dwarfed by all the glass and Burial Ground, currently undergoing extensive work to connect the site better with the concrete around it, look out an old white regency building called Prospect House surrounding streets. On your immediate left you might want to say hello to Sigismund once visited by George IV. Bear to the left at this and head for Point Pleasant, going Rucker, whose Putney Lodge house on West Hill became London’s second public past an old lighterman’s inn called The Cat’s Back. There was a lot of heavy industry library. The big Sainsbury’s next to this was the Voelker Gas Mantle Works one of in this area, particularly associated with a company called APV Holdings who made many mantle factories in the area, employing a largely female workforce. Follow the armaments in the First World War and petrol tanks for Spitfire aircraft in the Second. main path out into Malva Road and left into St Ann’s Hill. 10 On your right are Prospect Cottages, the homes of labourers who once 3 Cross the High Street opposite the Two Brewers into Fairfield Street. The worked in the wharves. Take a left into Osiers Road once the site of a fireworks enormous Wandsworth Town Hall which was opened in 1937 is to your left. On the factory. This marshy ground would have been where baskets were once made from corner on the right is an unusual tablet remembering this occasion and specifically the willow-like osier once so common to this area. This road takes you through the ‘500,000 people waving 50,000 flags for Queen Mary.’ Look out for the pinnacles new development, past a Sainsburys then back over ‘Wandle Creek Bridge’. This time on the roof of the Town Hall, replicated recently in a tribute by a small French do a sharp right following the signpost to Wandsworth. village to Wandsworth First World War hero Corporal Edward Foster VC, part of the 11 You’re now back on ‘The Causeway,’ an old route connecting the Thames to Wandsworth Battalion who liberated Villers Plouich in 1917. the Wandsworth Plain settlement. This is probably the best stretch in terms of giving 4 Take note here of Wandsworth town centre’s notorious much-derided one-way you a sense of the many layers of industrial activity in this area. The latest intruder system, instigated as a ‘temporary’ measure in 1964. Take the second right from is the building of London’s 26 mile long ‘super sewer’. Near here was the site of Fairfield Street into Tonsley Hill. Typical of the older period houses once lived in by the Lower Mill, a corn, oil and later a distillery associated with the Watney brewing those who worked in the mills and factories, somehow oblivious to all the change family. Wandsworth became the main grinder of flour for london in the early 19th around them. Tucked in close to here is 41 Bramford Road where Tony Blair lived in century, the Upper and Middle Mills producing 60,000 sacks of flour a year. Take the late seventies when he was a young barrister. This stretch gives you a residential yourself back to 1829 and picture this scene from the other side of the Thames. On hit before things get a bit industrial so make the most of it. Follow Tonsley Hill round your left, just after the railway bridge, look out for the bell at the sluice gates, rung Fullerton Road with great views of new high-rise buildings on both sides of the to warn of a high tide. On it is inscribed ‘I AM RUNG BY THE TIDES’. A stone tablet Thames. Carry on into Ebner Street and down the hill and right into Old York Road. above it fetchingly lists some of the wildlife that have returned to the area since the 5 This got really shaken up about 20 years ago when York Road suddenly became river has been cleaned up; salmon, swan,otter, heron, eel. Old York Road. Go past the Alma pub, named after a major British victory in the 12 Exit here with the Crane pub on your right. A sign suggests its haunted by ‘the Crimean War and under the railway bridge. Pass the lovely Bramford Community ghost of a small boy in knickerbockers’. Behind this is Dormay Road named after Garden on your right. Bearing right, cross Armoury Way just before the roundabout another gas factory owner and where it all began for Silas Burroughs and Henry and walk straight across past the front of Macdonalds, heading for Jew’s Road. Wellcome, whose factory located here in 1880 developed into the world’s largest Look out for the ‘Wandsworth Garage’ building on the left and a plaque detailing the pharmaceutical company. They ran out of space and had to relocate to Dartford. historic comings and goings of trams and trolley-bus services in the area. You now need to do battle again with Armoury Way - a nod to the iron works on 6 At the bottom of this road, turn left into a passage alongside The Ship, a Garratt Lane which made weapons for Waterloo and Trafalgar. This area was called renowned foodie-pub built on top of a sewage outlet.. Follow this to the right Wandsworth Plain and many slums were cleared from it in the 1930s. A little further and onto a riverside path in front of some new developments with great views of to your right, blocks of housing have names associated with some of the mills in the to your right. Covering a huge expanse in this area until 1971 area; Bolting, Middle Mill, Brazil. King George VI opened these in 1938. In the 16th was the mighty ‘Wandsworth and District Gas Company’,supplying coal gas in this century, Middle Mill which had its own windmill until 1893 produced a scarlet dye for area for lighting and heating. A fleet of colliers including the famousSS Wandle which Wandsworth became famous. Turn left over the bridge and follow Armoury Way which fought off a U-boat in the First World War brought in the coal. Established in to the next lights. Shut out the traffic and picture the giant Wandsworth Gas Company 1837 it was the largest employer in the area. Continue along Nickols Walk enjoying on your left, Youngs Brewery across the road on your right. the views across the river and the cranes of the Western Riverside Refuge and 13 Cross into Ram Street and the home of Wandsworth’s famous Young’s Brewery, Recycling Centre which you need to divert round. Take a left into Waterside Way. recently reborn as ‘The Ram Quarter’. Take the first right into Chivers Passage and 7 Turn right onto Smugglers Way and follow it past the refuge site. Look for the follow the sign back towards the river. You can now follow this along the edge of the Natural Wood Floor Company to your left, with a relic from the gasworks on display development. Its definitely worth diverting into Draper’s Yard where there are some behind a metal railing. Its a bit of a grim industrial wasteland around here. Echoes good heritage information displays including a wonderful 2017 re-creation of an old of past industries jostling uneasily with major new initiatives and its a constantly photo of Young’s staff members’ annual Christmas dinner. The Brewery, famous for changing vista. A little further on, a plaque on your right indicates the site of ‘The its continued use of carthorses to make local deliveries has been here since 1832. Causeway’ road and ‘The Cut’, a dock which linked the Thames to The Iron Although it closed in 2006 after a merger, a microbrewery on the site means its claim Railway. It was also known as ‘McMurrays’ Canal’ after a paper manfacturer whose to be the oldest continuously working brewery in the the UK has been maintained. mill on Garratt Lane produced the Times and other publications from esparto 14 Go over a small footbridge onto Wandsworth High Street and cross at grass which came through here. The Railway was financed by local businessmen Buckhold Road in front of the Southside complex. Turn left and get a good view of who saw an opportunity to move their produce more efficiently. Nine miles of track the front of the brewery before turning right back into Garratt Lane. Southside has from Wandsworth to opened in 1803 after being initiated by an Act of really improved a lot in the last few years, a fairly gentle transformation of the 1970 Parliament. The world’s first constructed on iron rails, it had a brief but memorable Arndale Centre which had itself replaced a greyhound stadium and Bazelgette’s existence. Drawn by horses it transported coal, building materials, manure, oil, seeds storm relief sewer aqueduct which ran across King George’s Park.

FOR INFORMATION AND MORE WALKS: summerstown182.wordpress.com @summerstown182 If you enjoy your walk, please consider making a donation to CriticalNHS, sustaining local business by keeping the St George’s frontline staff fed www.criticalnhs.org